CRS photojournalist and communications officer Sara Fajardo reports from her visit to Guyana:

Patients at the CRS sponsored St. Vincent de Paul Hospice Center measure health in belt notches.

“When I arrived two weeks ago I had to wear a belt to keep my pants up,” says new hospice resident Terrenc, 32, “But with the good food they feed us I no longer need one.”
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CRS photojournalist and communications officer Sara Fajardo reports from her visit to Guyana:

If Ansel Watts’ life were a novel it would be listed under three categories: adventure, tragedy, and redemption. When he was 23 he stowed away on a Miami-bound ship that set sail from his native Guyana. After 7 overheated days of no light, his only meals bread and water, the ship stopped. He peered outside and saw palm trees and beaches dotted with luxury hotels. “This must surely be Miami,” he thought to himself and climbed ashore. But Ansel miscalculated, it was one stop too soon. He’d landed in the Bahamas, still an ocean away from his intended destination.
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Communications Officer Sara Fajardo is traveling in Guyana, reporting on CRS programs and sharing her experiences with us.

I’m shocked when the lady at the ticket counter at Trans Guyana airlines asks me to step on the large scale normally used for luggage. I hobble on, my over-30-pounds of gear securely on my back, my small overnight bag at my feet. I lean on the counter. Stand up straight she tells me. Looks me up and down, pulls out a calculator.
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After a tourn in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, communications officer Sara Fajardo is traveling in Guyana, reporting on CRS programs and sharing her experiences with us.

I left the Dominican Republic with a heavy heart. Watched the beaches whip by me as the sun rose over the island. A 15-hour trip awaited me. There are no direct flights from the D.R. to Guyana, I’d have to fly to Miami and make my way south again.
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As part of my job as a communications officer for Latin America and the Caribbean I routinely travel to the field. This time around I’ll be visiting CRS programming in the Dominican Republic, Guyana, and Haiti.

In the next 17 days I’ll meet street children, visit schools, talk with Haitian refugees, spend a few days at hospices and clinics that treat people who have been diagnosed with HIV. I’ll go to the market with local growers, and travel to the Guyanese jungle where Amerindian children are being given access to the internet. I’ll travel along dirt roads and urban freeways. But like all journeys with CRS, the trip begins with a visit to the Johns Hopkins Travel Clinic.
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